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She
She
Ho Le
Native to	China
Region	Zengcheng, Boluo County, Huidong County and Haifeng County in Guangdong
Ethnicity	710,000 She (2000 census)
Native speakers	(910 cited 1999)
Language family	Hmong–Mien Hmongic Sheic Pana–She or Kiong Nai–She–Pana? Kiong Nai–She? She; ; ; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	shx
Glottolog	shee1238
ELP	She
	She is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
	This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA.

The She language (Mandarin: 畲語, Shēyǔ), autonym Ho Le^[5] or Ho Ne, /hɔ22 ne53/ or Ho Nte, is a critically endangered Hmong–Mien language spoken by the She people.^[6] Most of the over 709,000 She people today speak She Chinese (possibly a variety of Hakka Chinese). Those who speak Sheyu—approximately 1,200 individuals in Guangdong Province—call themselves Ho Ne, "mountain people" (活聶; huóniè).

Names

Speakers refer to themselves as Ho Le (lit. 'mountain people'), as She is the Chinese exonym. Only the Huidong dialect has Ho Ne, while the Boluo, Haifeng, and Zengcheng dialects all use Ho Le as their autonym.^[5]

Dialects

There are two main dialects of She, both of which are highly endangered.^[7] They are spoken in two small pockets to the west and east of Huizhou City, Guangdong.

Luofu 罗浮 (Western She dialect), spoken in Luofu Mountain District 罗浮山区, Boluo County and in Zengcheng District.^[8] 580 speakers according to Ethnologue.
Lianhua 莲花 (Eastern She dialect), spoken in Lianhua Mountain District 莲花山区, Haifeng County.^[8] 390 speakers according to Ethnologue.

External relationships

She has been difficult to classify due to the heavy influence of Chinese on the language. Matisoff (2001), for example, left it unclassified within the Hmongic languages, and some have considered that much to be doubtful, leaving it unclassified within (and potentially a third branch of) the Hmong–Mien languages. She has monosyllabic roots, but has mainly compound words.^[7] However, due to the similar components of She, Mao & Li (2002) and Ratliff (2010) consider She to be most closely related to Jiongnai.^[9]^[10]

The She language is not to be confused with She Chinese (Chinese: 畲话, meaning 'She dialect' or 'She speech'), a sister branch to Hakka Chinese spoken by the She people of Fujian and Zhejiang provinces. She language and She Chinese speakers have separate histories and identities, although both are officially classified by the Chinese government as She people. The Dongjia of Majiang County, Guizhou are also officially classified as She people, but speak a Western Hmongic language closely related to Chong'anjiang Miao (重安江苗语).

Phonology

Consonants

She consonants
		Labial		Alveolar		Velar			Glottal
		plain	pal.	plain	pal.	plain	pal.	lab.	plain	pal.
Nasal	voiced	m	mʲ	n	nʲ	ŋ	ŋʲ
Nasal	voiceless					ŋ̊
Plosive	unaspirated	p	pʲ	t	tʲ	k	kʲ	kʷ	(ʔ)
Plosive	aspirated	pʰ	pʰʲ	tʰ	tʰʲ	kʰ	kʰʲ	kʰʷ
Affricate	unaspirated			ts	tsʲ
Affricate	aspirated			tsʰ	tsʰʲ
Fricative	voiceless	f		s	sʲ				h	hʲ
Fricative	voiced	v		z	zʲ

Glottal stop is not distinct from zero (a vowel-initial syllable).

There are consonant mutation effects. For instance, pǐ + kiáu becomes pi̋’iáu, and kóu + tȁi becomes kóulȁi.

Vowels

The vowels of She are /i e a ɔ ɤ u/. It has the finals /j w n ŋ t k/, with /t k/ only in Hakka loans, though /ɤ/ is never followed by a final, and the only stops which follow the front vowels are /n t/.

Tones

She has six tones, reduced to two (high and low) in checked syllables (Hakka loans only). There is quite a lot of dialectical variability; two of the reported inventories (not necessarily in corresponding order) are:

[ ˥ ˦ ˧ ˨ ˨˩ ˧˥ ]: that is, /5 4 3 2 1 35/, or (on /a/), /a̋ á ā à ȁ ǎ/

[ ˥˧ ˦˨ ˧ ˨ ˧˩ ˧˥ ]: that is, /53 42 3 2 31 35/

Vocabulary

Old Chinese loanwords

As a language in southern China, She has various loanwords from Old Chinese.^{[citation needed]}

走 to run
行 to walk; in Standard Mandarin, it means "do" (general sense, not just "to walk")
烏 black
赤 red
寮 house; in Standard Mandarin, it means "hut"
禾 rice (plant); in Standard Mandarin, it means "millet"
鑊 wok
奉 to give; in Standard Mandarin, it means "give with respect"
其 he/she/it
着 to wear
睇 to look; in Standard Mandarin, it means "look askance"
戮 to kill
齧 to bite
使 to use

References

Citations

^ ^a ^b She at Ethnologue (18th ed., 2015) (subscription required)
^ Taguchi, Yoshihisa (2012). On the Phylogeny of the Hmong-Mien languages. Conference in Evolutionary Linguistics 2012 (PowerPoint presentation). Archived from the original (PPTX) on 2016-03-03.
^ ^a ^b Hsiu, Andrew. 2015. The classification of Na Meo, a Hmong-Mien language of Vietnam. Paper presented at SEALS 25, Chiang Mai, Thailand.
^ ^a ^b Hsiu, Andrew. 2018. Preliminary classification of Hmongic languages Archived 2020-10-23 at the Wayback Machine
^ ^a ^b Xiyao, Wang (2023). The Unchecked Tones of Ho Le She. 56th International Conference on Sino-Tibetan Languages and Linguistics, 10-12 October 2023. Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok.
^ Moseley, Christopher, ed. (2010). Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger. Memory of Peoples (3rd ed.). Paris: UNESCO Publishing. ISBN 978-92-3-104096-2. Retrieved 2015-04-11.
^ ^a ^b "She". Ethnologue. Retrieved 2017-02-10.
^ ^a ^b Mao, Zongwu 毛宗武 (1986). Shēyǔ jiǎnzhì 畲语简志 (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.
^ Mao, Zongwu 毛宗武; Li, Yunbing 李云兵 (2002). Jiǒngnàiyǔ yánjiū 炯奈语硏究 [A Study of Jiongnai] (in Chinese). Beijing: Zhongyang minzu daxue chubanshe.
^ Ratliff, Martha (2010). Hmong-Mien Language History. Canberra: Pacific Linguistics. hdl:1885/146760. ISBN 978-0-85883-615-0.

Sources

Bruhn, Daniel (2008). "Minority Language Policy in China, with Observations on the She Ethnic Group" (PDF). Retrieved 30 July 2018.
Mao, Zongwu 毛宗武; Meng, Chaoji 蒙朝吉 (1986). Shēyǔ jiǎnzhì 畬語簡志 [A Sketch of the She Language] (in Chinese). Beijing: Minzu chubanshe.
Ratliff, Martha (1998). "Ho Ne (She) is Hmongic: One final argument" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 21 (2): 97–109.
You, Wenliang 游文良 (2002). Shēzú yǔyán 畬畲族语言 [The Languages of the She People] (in Chinese). Fuzhou: Fujian renmin chubanshe.